In today’s briefing:
- Ohayo Japan | Best Week of the Year
- Japan Weekly | Stocks Surge; Fujikura, KHI, Rakus
- Japan Morning Connection: Asahi Intecc, PPIH
- Japan’s Retail Sector Grows Faster than 1990
- A Few Signs Beyond Advertising Optimization In GAI Commercialization
- Japan’s Retail Week: New Malls Slow, Lawson/Muji Get Closer, Donki Booms and Jobs for the over 80s
Ohayo Japan | Best Week of the Year
- Stocks closed higher on Friday, capping the best week of the year for major indexes.
- In the April-June quarter, 70% of surveyed Japanese companies exceeded profit forecasts
- Japan’s anime and content exports, at 4.7 trillion yen annually, are nearing parity with the semiconductor industry’s 5.7 trillion yen
Japan Weekly | Stocks Surge; Fujikura, KHI, Rakus
- This week, the S&P 500 surged 3.9%. The rally was driven by encouraging inflation data, robust retail sales, and lower-than-expected initial jobless claims
- Japanese stocks saw a remarkable recovery this week, with the Nikkei surging over 3,000 points and posting gains for four consecutive trading days.
- Fujikura’s stock surged 40% over the past week due to a positive market outlook driven by the rising demand for AI servers
Japan Morning Connection: Asahi Intecc, PPIH
- Upbeat results briefing from Asahi Intecc on Friday continues to make this look oversold with GPM bottoming, its MTP 1-year ahead of plan and strong growth outlooks for key markets China and US.
- With numbers out for PPIH on Friday and the outlook reassuringly steady, this may start to get more attention as NKY225 inclusion candidate given it comes from the under-represented consumer goods segment.
- AMAT numbers showing a decline in China revenues a red flag for Japanese SPE names overly reliant on China sales?
Japan’s Retail Sector Grows Faster than 1990
- Retailing is booming in Japan, backed by consumers getting out and about, buying enthusiastically and enjoying Japan’s shop-focused entertainment centres once again.
- Tourists are back in record numbers, with 3 million a month entering Japan since March and well over 30 million expected in 2024 overall.
- Inflation remains a concern, but we’re two years into this round of price increases and consumers are becoming resigned to higher prices. FY2024 will be another excellent year.
A Few Signs Beyond Advertising Optimization In GAI Commercialization
- From C1Q24 results we concluded that media platforms with large, untapped and preferably contextual traffic tend to benefit the most from Generative AI (GAI). C2Q24 largely trended the same line;
- But Google is experimenting with inserting ads above or below the AI Overview Box. We hold reservation on the result but Baidu can likely copy;
- New growth emerged in AI Agent with API calls on Microsoft Azure, Google, Linked-In and Snap showing accelerated sequential growth. AI agent is likely the next hot spot in GAI.
Japan’s Retail Week: New Malls Slow, Lawson/Muji Get Closer, Donki Booms and Jobs for the over 80s
- Last week in Japan’s retail sector: continued weakness in shopping mall development due to both falling demand from tenants and competition from online.
- Don Quijote operator, Pan Pacific posted strong results, reflecting high demand from both locals looking for value and tourists browsing for fun.
- The retail sector had a record year in FY23, but a big constraint is the labour shortage but, with many fit older Japanese, some employees are now over 80.
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